


Out of the Darkness

by Assassin_J



Series: Ouri Stories [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Human Outsider, M/M, No Spoilers, Post-DotO, Shippy Gen, The Outsider is autistic, as a fellow Autistic i can confirm 100percent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: Writember Day 29 - "Air"The Outsider turns human and is immediately in Sensory Hell.Corvo being there helps him cope.(post-doto but it's au where Daud was the doto guy , Billie didn't want any part of that shit. lol, tfw you haven't played a game yet but you're already making an AU version)





	1. Chapter 1

He gasped, a sudden heat burning all over his insides. What was this heat? Oh, it was the very _air_ , the air was so _warm_ , he couldn't stand it, and there were prickling little blades folded between his naked body and the ground. Oh no, he was naked, why was he naked, why was he naked and hot and uncomfortable and surrounded by noises, what happened, why couldn't he Blink away or fix his outfit or do _anything_???

_Daud!_

The memory rushed in all at once, filling his head, even more overstimulation. It was only two moments ago, that vicious fight, Daud with his wondrous powers turned against the very one who'd granted them, Daud the ungrateful bastard, oh it was such a mistake to ever Mark him-

Someone started jostling his shoulder, and he still couldn't Blink away, and the air was still so warm, and the blades were still itching his skin. He turned his head up and there was a bright light but a man's head was blocking it partially.

The man was talking to him, his voice soft but growing frantic. "-hear me? What happened?"

Squinting against the bright hot light, he recognized this man. "Corvo," he breathed out, feeling the name tangibly rise up through his throat and leave his lips on the strange hot air.

Upon hearing that voice, an ineffable look came over Corvo's face. "Oh- by the Void," he said, softer but more frantic. "Are you really- _Outsider_?"

"Do you- not rec- recognize me?" The sentence came out brokenly; he was relearning how to breathe.

Corvo knelt down as the Outsider sat up. "You- you look a bit different. Your clothes, your eyes, your... body. What happened?"

"It was Daud." The Outsider sounded choked up.

"Daud," Corvo said with confusion and venom.

"He-" The details of the conflict were fuzzy, unclear, a mess in his mind. "He attacked me. Ousted me from my domain." The blades under his body were grass; a short-clipped lawn; the grounds of Dunwall Tower. He combed his fingers through the green wet with dew.

"Ousted you? How- Never mind. Tell me all about it later." Corvo took off his outer jacket and put it around the shivering pale figure.

The Outsider pulled his attention away from the grass to look at Corvo again. "What's-"

"Please, we should get inside, before more people see you. Can you stand?"

"I believe so." Legs wobbling, he managed to rise, the long flaps of Corvo's jacket somewhat hiding his bare body.

Corvo put his arm around the Outsider's torso and started helping him walk, for it was something he hadn't done in the Void, hadn't needed to do, not in thousands of years. Close to where they'd started, the Outsider shuddered and fell once, onto hands and knees. He mutely accepted Corvo's hand to help him back up and back on their way.

"Will you be here long?" Corvo asked uncertainly.

"If I could return, I would have already done so," the Outsider said sourly.

The grass still itched his feet, and the air was still warm. _Everything_ was warm here. It didn't feel like it had on his brief previous visits to the human world. Even the Outsider's body itself felt warm, pulsing- oh, he had blood now, blood in his veins and air in his chest and dirt on his knees- oh, he was... human.

"The guard patrol will be coming along soon," Corvo said. "I cannot simply hide you away. What should we tell them?"

"I'm human," the Outsider said, his words scarcely more than a breath.

"Well I wasn't about to tell them who you really are, but we need a more specific story than-"

He cut in, "No, I'm human," and punctuated it by squeezing onto one of Corvo's arms. "I- I am human." He was both frightened and intrigued.

Corvo turned his head and looked again at the slightly smaller man- if man he truly was now, not god. "Daud? Daud turned you human?" Even to Corvo who wasn't an Abbey follower by any means, it seemed almost sacrilege that the Master of the Void could be made mortal.

"He- he meant to kill me but-" The Outsider couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't put together any more words. Frightened and intrigued, and still overstimulated by his body's warmth and the sun's light and the grass' texture. He buried his face in Corvo's side, hiding in the familiar smell of him.

"Are you all right?" Corvo asked, stopping their walk for a moment.

"I don't know." He breathed in, purposely this time, fueling his fresh body with Corvo's scent. "Yes. I think so." He looked back up at the man. "What's different about my eyes?"

Corvo blinked, a little thrown by the ala carte question. "They're... not black anymore."

"Oh? Curious." The Outsider pulled Corvo to start walking again, on the cobblestone path now, away from the odious grass blades. "Come. I'd like to look in a mirror."

"Careful, you're... showing," Corvo said, nearly stumbling over the word. He rushed to stand in front of the Outsider, and did his best to more firmly close the long jacket over his front. "It will be hard enough to explain a sudden guest in the tower, let alone one who's hardly wearing anything."

The Outsider laughed a small small laugh. "I am glad the Void spat me out near to you and not anywhere else, dear Corvo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay here's a few of my thoughts as I was writing this
> 
> -it's cold in the void obviously because there ain't no sunshine  
> -when Outie appears at shrines he's like, wreathed in Voidal energies and thus doesn't get the full Human World Sensory Experience  
> -Corvo mentions Outie's body is different: in this ficverse of mine he doesn't turn human to the age that he was sacrificed at (because let's face it that's a liiiil bit too young for Corvie), he aged a decade or two (y'know, part and parcel of losing the wrassle with Daud i guess *shrug*)  
> -pls don't comment any spoilers for DOTO!! I've played it by now but I'd like to keep this particular fic spoilers free for other fans.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not Writember anymore but I'm really attached to this series/au/whatever ya wanna call it

The door to the Empress' private study was ajar, and Corvo knocked. "Emily? Can we talk? Something's happened." 

"Yes Father?" she answered, rising from her desk and going to meet him in the doorway. "Oh." She took pause at the sight of the person accompanying him. 

"He appeared on the grounds while I was taking my morning walk," Corvo said. 

"Hello, Empress," the person said, waving slightly with a long-fingered hand. "I did not think we would meet again like this." 

She thought she recognized that voice, with its slight underlying rasp. And the unstyled flat mop of dark brown hair seemed familiar too. She thought so, but she wasn't entirely sure. He wore a dim blue-and-gray outfit that she knew had definitely been taken from Corvo's own closet, and it hung loosely off of his too-small frame. "I'm sorry, I don't recall your name, sir," she said politely, choosing not to comment on the borrowed clothes. 

The man let out a short breathy laugh. "Oh Empress, I don't recall my name either; too many centuries have passed since it last saw use." 

Corvo put fingertips to the side of his forehead. "I'm surprised you can laugh about your situation," he said to the man. Then he exhaled and lowered his hand. "Well, Emily," he said, in a voice soft and serious, "this is the Outsider." 

Mind racing, Emily looked the pale man over again. 

"You know your father would not lie to you," he said. 

She was stricken with astonishment. Now that Corvo had informed her, he was actually quite recognizable, even though his voice no longer had the haunting half-echo, and his eyes no longer were the solid glossy black, and his body no longer had the leanness of perpetual adolescence. "You've changed." 

"Into a human," he said without missing a beat. 

She ushered them into her study and closed the door. "What's behind this change?" she asked, leaning against the wall and folding her arms. 

With a bit of a scowl now, Corvo answered, "Daud's returned to being an assassin, with our friend here his latest target." 

"Although this time he was not working for coin," the Outsider said, gracelessly seating himself in an armchair. "It was of his own volition that he sought a way to kill me."  As he spoke, his gaze floated and jagged around the room, rather than looking fixedly at either of the people there. It seemed reminiscent of how he'd used to Blink about when conversing in the Void.  "At the end, everything dissolved around me," he continued coolly, "and then by some means, I found myself removed from the Void and remade into this form." 

"How could you allow him to do that?" Corvo asked, gripping the back of the armchair where the Outsider was seated. "Didn't you know what he was planning?" 

The Outsider tilted his head back to smirk up at him. "Dear Corvo, you know it is not in my nature to interfere." 

"Excuse me, you interfere a lot," Emily said sharply, pointing to her covered left hand. 

"What my Marked choose to do with the gift is their own decision. There are some who would never dare use it at all, but they are not interesting enough to ever receive it, of course." He began to kick his legs back and forth experimentally, watching them swing. "It was fascinating to watch Daud on his quest to take me down. Many humans have wanted to, but never a Marked." 

"Well, I am glad that he did not entirely succeed," Corvo said, a soft smile starting to break over his face. 

"So now what?" Emily asked, directing the question at Corvo mostly. 

"I think it's best he stay at Dunwall Tower, at least for a while," Corvo answered her. In truth he would accept nothing else, and no other option he could think of even made sense. The Abbey had shelters for the homeless and destitute, but their conditions were widely known to be less than hospitable, and they would certainly react badly if they ever found out whom they were housing. And some friends of the Empress eschewed the Abbey's doctrines, yes, but that did not equate to meaning they would happily caretake the Outsider, even his human version. 

Emily sighed and headed back towards her desk. "All right, Father, but you are in charge of him; I have enough on my plate with the Morleyan delegation coming in two days' time." She fell into her wooden swivel chair and returned to leafing through a stack of correspondence and requests. 

Corvo beamed at the Outsider and helped him up from the armchair. "I think you'll find it interesting being human." 

And the Outsider smiled back. 


End file.
